Apart from the dizziness caused by rapid travel, my head spun quite a bit for another, more important reason: I was back in the "first world" bubble, which blurred and warped my vision more than ever before. After 2 1/2 years in Latin America I didn't really feel alienated living in posh Aix-en-Provence, France, nor did I when moving to Montreal after a year in the less wealthy parts of Asia. But, after a year in Africa, stepping back into the bubble with its ice cream cones and haute couture uniforms  left me utterly torn.

On one hand there were the parts that I truly enjoyed, manifesting foremost as a certain freedom.  I would blend in again instead of standing out. Nobody would pay attention to me and I could just walk for hours through any neighborhood of Sarajevo, at any time of day or night, without being noticed or without having to be cautious of certain perils caused by said attention. Don't get me wrong - Africa is a much safer place than most make it out to be, safer in some ways even than the bubble. Yet, being an easily recognizable foreigner there, I can't navigate the streets of say Joburg as easily and freely as the ones of Sarajevo or Dubrovnik. And so I roamed, for hours and hours, while slowly realizing how much I had missed this. There is also a certain beauty in European cities that I grew up with and crave, whether I like it or not. It is undeniably rooted very deeply in my sense for architectural esthetics, which, therefore, is best met here.

On the other hand I was repelled by the same beauty. It's just a little too easy on the eyes after having seen how people outside the bubble live. I don't know why it struck me more after Africa. I had seen much poverty in Latin America and Asia too, but somehow I was more torn this time. The contrast was just so tremendously stark - here the palaces and clock towers, there the shanty towns; here the women with jewelry and superfluous make up layers, there the women who have one pair of underpants. Everybody seemed so self-absorbed, trying real hard to look pretty, without an existential worry in the world, oblivious to the suffering out there and only ever meeting you with a hard stare if any. No more smiles shone my way, no more friendly greetings. And this in one of the arguably warmest parts of Europe. I couldn't grasp it, couldn't stand the pretentious fanciness, especially considering the very recent past of a war in the region. Only when I moved on to Kosovo and Albania, which seemed less bubbly, my torn halves slowly merged again into a unified image of a world in which everything isn't bad and everything isn't good.

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